foreshortening

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. A technique for creating the appearance that the object of a drawing is extending into space by shortening the lines with which that object is drawn.

v. Present participle of foreshorten.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. Representation in a foreshortened mode or way.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. In perspective, the representation of figures pointing more or less directly toward the spectator standing in front of the picture, or away from a plane perpendicular to the spectator's line of sight, but shown in such a manner as to convey to the mind the impression of their just length.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Examples

This becomes complicated and more difficult to arrange when we admit into our design anything resembling what painters call foreshortening, and the awkwardness is felt even in the placing of such a small thing as an apple-leaf, which may be treated in such a way that the intention of the drawing is entirely lost in the confusion which arises between the inferred and the actual projection.

However, have achieved the foreshortening well enough for a viewer to get the idea of foreshortening - this is not always an easy task, especially when a character has such detailed armor on as this one.

Guidelines corresponding to the perspective screen's divisions can be seen in his drawings from later years, when he was living in France, suggesting that he still relied on the device to work out the spectacular foreshortening effects that characterized some of his best pictures of that period, such as "The Harvest" 1888, painted near Arles.